Biodiversity Exploratories as Biocultural Landscapes: Past, Present and Future

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Biocultural diversity refers to the biological and cultural diversity of life on earth. In farming landscapes, biocultural diversity is evident in the ways that humans have shaped the landscape, and how the landscape has shaped human culture. In our proposed project, we intend to analyse the biocultural diversity of the Biodiversity Exploratories landscapes; three regions covering north, central and south-west Germany. These regions have long histories of human engagement with nature. By employing social-ecological research methods that tie human perception to nature and land-use, and tailoring our approach to the structure of the Biodiversity Exploratories, we seek to build a comprehensive picture of past, present and future biocultural diversity across these regions. First, we will analyse the historical landscape perspectives of local residents through oral histories, in order to identify local-ecological knowledge relating to the unique natural heritage of each region, and to identify regional linguistic diversity in relation to landscape. We will interview older residents of each region and encourage them to talk about their experiences and memories of the landscape. We will catalogue any words or phrases that are distinct to landscape and compare the differences across the three regions. Second, using the photo-elicitation method, we will investigate how local residents perceive ecosystem services across a gradient of land-use intensity for forests and grasslands of the Biodiversity Exploratories regions. We will also ask how people use these different types of landscape and what their landscape preferences are. In this way, we can understand people’s ‘lived’ biocultural experiences in the present landscape. Third, we will systematically explore future scenarios for biodiversity with young people in the three regions. It is important to understand young people’s perspectives given that they make up the future communities of these biocultural landscapes. In each region we will conduct workshops with participants aged 16-24, where we will develop future scenarios related to regional biodiversity, including the drivers of biodiversity trends, as well as the enablers and barriers to future engagement with nature. These scenarios will be compared among the three regions. Fourth, we will synthesize trends related to biocultural diversity in European farming landscapes by means of an expert workshop. Based on the evidence derived from the above three study packages, as well as case studies from experts on both biocultural diversity and high-nature-value farming across Europe, we will address how a biocultural lens can help safeguard biological and cultural heritage in European farming landscapes. This will be an opportunity to strengthen scientific networks and present how the Biodiversity Exploratories allows for rich biocultural investigation at the centre of Europe.